Fro Yo!

This cake endeavor was a lesson in planning, for sure. This past weekend was Megan’s birthday, and Ghiya and Lauren and I were brainstorming what to make for her. She loves cake… ice cream… the color pink…the Nittany Lion… and so on. Somehow we decided on a giant Yogurtland cup, because Megs gets ridiculously excited when we go for fro-yo after work. It’s the little things, ya?

For those who haven’t experienced the self-serve probiotic delight that is Yogurtland, here are a few reference photos, that my best friend Google found for me.

Look at all the flavor choices! Variety often throws people for a loop and the biggest challenge is deciding…

Yum… Here we have a fruity concoction.

Megs specifically requested strawberry shortcake. My plan started with a basic white cake with vanilla buttercream and slices of strawberries. Look at this beautiful arrangement done by Lauren:

I was intending on using my giant cupcake pan to mold the bottom of the YL (Yogurtland abbreviation) cup, and the cupcake swirl for the “yogurt.” Unfortunately, the proportions would’ve been off; the “cup” part too small relative to the “yogurt.” This is where pre-planning would’ve come into place. That, or having extra ingredients on hand.

I ended up using a 9″ round pan… Three times for three layers to make it tall enough… And Ghiya definitely had to stop by the store more than once that night. Thanks G, you rock.

Here’s the layer- white cake, buttercream, strawberries:

While I was tackling the construction, L and G got to the tough part! They made the white fondant for the cup, and then started on the lettering that would go on the outside. Check out this progression… they pulled up a photo and worked off that, coloring the fondant and everything!

They used my square and circle cookie cutters to get the exact shapes. It was pretty amazing.

Love the leaves 🙂

Here is the “cup,” coveredin fondant and chillin’ in my freezer.

Here’s the “yogurt”- the swirl part of the giant cupcake mold!

Here is the swirl on the giant cup, starting to pipe pink pink frosting to represent the strawberry flavor that Megs never fails to get when we go to YL.

L’s great observation: the YL cup needs a lip! To achieve this, I rolled out some leftover white fondant into a long rope.

Then smashed it onto the circumference, and flattened it out to look like the cup.

Some finishing touches: added a thin amount of fondant at the bottom to clean up the edge, G used piping gel to stick the letters on the side, and we smoothed out the yogurt for a nice texture and filled the cup with Toy Story 3 gummies as “fruit.” We can’t forget the sprinkles. Megs can’t live without sprinkles.

We took the cake to a tapas place in Old Town called Iruna for her happy hour. They had terrific service and even cut and served the cake. Here’s a cross section photo:

See all the strawberry goodness? 🙂

I just had to put this photo on, to show how big this cake was! Also, that is a real Yogurtland spoon. Biodegradable plastic and green? How could I resist from collecting them?